


Information Technology for Beginners

by Essie_Cat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Werewolves, Alternate Universe - Office, Fluff, M/M, Stiles Stilinski is a Little Shit, Strangers to Lovers, tech guy Danny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25884127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Essie_Cat/pseuds/Essie_Cat
Summary: Stiles’s laptop just keeps breaking, okay? It’s got nothing to do with the hot guy who works in IT. Nothing at all.
Relationships: Danny Mahealani/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 3
Kudos: 116
Collections: Teen Wolf





	Information Technology for Beginners

‘Hey, computer gremlins!’

Danny, on his hands and knees under the desk trying to jam a wire into an uncooperative port, wasn’t exactly encouraged by this greeting. He poked his head out from under the desk, preparing to snap as politely as he could that there were no gremlins around here, thank you very much, and it was his first day on the job so he barely knew where the bathrooms were, let alone anything more advanced.

Then he saw who the voice belonged to and – okay. Well. That sight was maybe a little more encouraging.

The guy was about Danny’s age, with messy brown hair and a cute smattering of moles on his cheeks. He was wearing a shirt and slacks - in contrast to the jeans and t-shirts that were uniform in IT – which suggested he was from Upstairs rather than being some tech guy that Danny hadn't met yet. Also, he was holding a laptop like it might explode and wearing the guilty expression of someone who has a technical issue and knows they're going to do a bad job of explaining it.

‘Sorry, dude,’ the guy said affably. ‘Just looking for Boyd? Or Erica? Or anyone who knows why laptops are evil creatures that won’t do as they’re told?’

Erica and Boyd were on their lunch break. Isaac had sprinted off ten minutes ago to put out some fire or other for a director on the ninth floor. Which left Danny holding the fort in the little basement office inhabited by this woefully understaffed department. 

He scrambled out from under the desk. Stiles looked at the cables in his hand. ‘You look busy. I can come back.’ He didn’t make any move to leave, though.

Danny suspected that Stiles was accustomed to charming his way into getting what he wanted out of co-workers. And apparently, despite his better judgement, Danny wasn’t going to be the guy who broke that pattern.

‘It’s fine,’ he found himself saying, holding out his hand for the laptop. 

Stiles attempted to explain what was wrong, gesticulating wildly to demonstrate his points, and scowling intermittently at the laptop as though it might show some remorse if he glared hard enough. 

Danny nodded politely as Stiles rambled on, and eventually interrupted with, ‘Have you tried turning it off and on again?’ 

‘Um. No?’

Danny restarted the computer and handed it back to Stiles. His eyes lit up as though Danny had performed some sort of miracle. ‘Thanks, man.’

‘Anytime.’

‘I’m Stiles, by the way. I’m in Finance. Fifth floor.’

‘Danny.’ He shook the guy’s proffered hand. And tried not to focus too much on his long, slim fingers or his confident grip, or the moles dotted along his pale forearms where his shirtsleeves were rolled back. 

Because he’d been in the building less than a day and he definitely wasn’t going to start falling for the first guy he laid eyes on. Even someone with the _audacity_ to be as cute as Stiles was.

Danny’s first week in his new job was … fine. The team were nice enough – Erica snarky but capable, Boyd gruff but hardworking, Isaac permanently stressed. He didn’t have much contact with people from Upstairs, though he had meetings set up with a few department heads for later in the week. But the existing code was a mess, and he needed about twice as many hours in the day and three times as many hands to the wheel as he was ever likely to get.

He knew he should’ve stayed in San Francisco and gone along with Jackson and Ethan’s wild idea for a start-up. He could’ve frittered away Jackson’s parents’ money to his heart’s content. He was sure at least three guys he went to college with were already on their way to becoming billionaires. 

But Danny had chosen Hale Industries instead, and he was going to have a regular income and health insurance and dental and _stability_ , which was good too, right?

If Greenberg ended up as the next Bezos, Danny was packing it all in and becoming a monk.

On his fourth day, he was in the cafeteria making the important choice between tuna crunch and pastrami when he felt a tap on his shoulder. ‘Hey, IT.’

He turned and saw Stiles standing behind him, a large coffee in one hand, a packet of Reese’s in the other. 

Danny raised an eyebrow and tried not to look too pleased. ‘Are you calling me that because you can’t remember my name?’

‘Shit, you got me. Darius, is it? Donald? Deucalion? No, no, I’ve got it – Manny?’

Stiles grinned, and Danny rather wished he hadn’t, because now he couldn’t focus on anything else and the woman behind the counter was waiting to take his order. He handed over one of the sandwiches at random, blurted out an order for a coffee he didn’t even want, and tried to keep his head on straight while Stiles asked him how he was finding the job so far.

‘Fixed any more mutinous laptops?’

‘None at all,’ Danny said truthfully.

‘Well, never mind. I’m sure things’ll pick up. You don’t have to worry about seeing me again, at least,’ Stiles said cheerfully. ‘Laptop’s running like a dream. Never been better. Not a wire out of place.’

Stiles showed up in the IT basement four more times over the next two weeks.

‘Sorry! Me again. I’m useless with this stuff. Not a clue what’s wrong this time,’ he’d say breezily. ‘D’you think you could…’

And he would stand in the doorway, laptop held in front of him like an offering, a sheepish, indecently charming grin on his face. 

‘You can just call us, you know,’ Boyd said. ‘Phones exist.’

‘And miss out on seeing your smiling faces? I think not.’

‘Feel free to email,’ Erica suggested. ‘We can read.’

‘Hey, gotta stretch my legs. There’s six flights of stairs to get down here. Just trying to get my 10,000 steps in. Are you saying you don’t care about my health, Reyes?’

Danny would sigh and hold out a hand, and Stiles would bound over to his desk and explain how a scary warning message had just appeared out of _nowhere_ , or the shared drive just kept crashing on him for _no reason_ , or the screen had gone black just like _that_ , he’d barely touched it, honestly. 

More often than not, he would babble cheerfully about Danny’s choice of attire ('Yellow's a bold choice, dude, but somehow you're making it work') or make insightful comments about the content of Danny’s screen (‘Jesus, is that English? Oh, JavaScript? Right, yeah, cool. I definitely understand everything you're saying right now.’)

It was infuriating. It was deeply unsubtle. It was something Danny absolutely did not have time for amongst the other zillion things he had piling up around him.

And it definitely wasn’t the best part of his day, or anything. 

‘Don’t let Stilinksi bully you,’ Erica told him firmly. ‘It’s not your job to run around after him.’

Danny rather thought he wouldn’t mind a bit of bullying from Stiles. He was pretty confident, actually, that Stiles could hit him with a car and drive off laughing into the sunset and Danny would shout ‘Thank you!’ into the cloud of dust he left in his wake. 

‘Just tell him to piss off,’ Erica was saying. ‘I always do.’

‘Even though it actually _is_ your job to help him,’ Danny pointed out. 

Erica flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder. ‘Details.’

At the end of his second week at Hale Industries, Danny found himself in a stylishly uncomfortable armchair on the fifth floor, situated in a dazzlingly bright corridor between glass-walled meeting rooms. His meeting with Bobby Finstock, the Finance director, was meant to start twenty minutes ago. 

He wasn’t complaining about the delay, though. Truth be told, he was a little … distracted. In the room directly across from his chair, through the glass partition, he had an excellent view of Stiles giving a presentation in front of a board filled with statistics and graphs and unbearable corporate buzzwords. 

He was dressed more smartly than he ever was when he ventured downstairs to IT – still no tie, but he was wearing a jacket and had his shirt tucked in, and his hair was even a little slicker. But even this polished, professional Stiles couldn't help looking animated and excited as he ploughed through his presentation, hands flailing as he gestured to something on the board behind him. 

It was probably obvious that Danny was staring. As Stiles wrapped up his spiel and returned to his seat, he shot a smirk through the glass in Danny’s direction. 

Stiles’s meeting finished before Finstock’s did. As the rest of the room filed out, clutching MacBooks and notepads and nodding to each other seriously, Stiles hung back. 

‘Hey.’ He grinned, indecently charming. ‘Didn’t know you were allowed above stairs.’

Danny shrugged. ‘Only on special occasions.’

Stiles looked him up and down. ‘Look at you, all dressed up. Going to church?’

Danny smoothed down the front of his shirt. His concession to meetings Upstairs was to wear a button-down rather than one of his v-necks. 'Not sure there are many gods in this building.'

Stiles raised his eyebrows, but before he could produce a witty retort, the door to Finstock’s office opened. 

‘Bilinski!’ he roared, glancing between him and Danny. ‘Stop bothering the guy. He’s got better things to do than clear out the porn in your browser history.’

‘Dunno about that,’ Stiles said. ‘It’s a pretty important job. Time consuming. Emotionally traumatising.’

From behind Finstock came two PAs, devastatingly well-dressed, and a good-looking man with a small goatee and the most intense eyes Danny had ever seen. Danny stood up quickly and tried not to hyperventilate. He’d never had the honour of meeting their exalted CEO in person, but there was a ridiculous portrait of him in the atrium on the first floor, so everyone who’d ever stepped through the doors knew what he looked like. Somehow the portrait didn't really do him justice, though.

‘Peter,’ Finstock said, with rather more reverence in his voice than he’d afforded Stiles, ‘have you met Danny Mahealani, our new lead developer?’

Danny held out a hand and Hale took hold of it in a firm, commanding grip, his eyes sparkling. Jesus. That sort of jawline should really be illegal.

‘Great to meet you, sir,’ Danny said, confident that Peter Hale had absolutely no idea who he was or what his job title meant.

‘Charmed,’ Hale drawled, looking Danny up and down, before gliding away in a breeze of self-importance and Tom Ford aftershave, his flunkies scuttling after him.

Stiles looked at Danny, mouth hanging slightly open. ‘Lead developer?’

‘Guilty as charged.’

‘So … you’re not actually tech support?’

‘Nope.’

‘So … it’s not actually your job to help with my computer shit?’

‘There’s not a _help Stiles with his computer shit_ clause in my contract, no.’

‘You could’ve said, dude.’ Stiles looked bashful. ‘Sorry I made you change my password so many times.’ 

‘Don’t you have someplace to be, Bilinski?’ Finstock demanded, and Stiles saluted and slunk away, while Finstock waved Danny into his office.

When Danny arrived at work on Monday – a little later than usual, after getting stuck in traffic and sprinting up from the parking lot – Erica shoved a box of baked goods in his face before he’d so much as had a chance to say good morning.

‘Cookie?’ she asked innocently.

‘I didn’t know you baked.’

‘I don’t.’ She smirked. ‘Stilinksi says thank you for all the help we’ve give him these past couple weeks.’ 

Danny approached her desk warily. There were three Tupperware boxes stuffed to the brim with cookies in a variety of shapes. One box were stars, another squares, and the third appeared to be in the shape of bunny rabbits. He eyed them all suspiciously. 

‘I don’t think they’re poisoned,’ Erica said, glancing at the half-eaten cookie in her hand. ‘I hope not.’

‘That’s a lot of cookies for four people,’ Danny said.

Erica’s smirk grew even more gleeful. ‘I’m pretty sure they’re just for you.’

Danny narrowed his eyes at her and snatched up a star shaped cookie with lurid yellow icing. 

He managed an hour and a half before breaking his own rule about using work email for personal use. 

[d.mahealani to m.stilinski, 10:32]

_Thanks for the cookies. They’re not half bad._

[m.stilinski to d.mahealani, 10:38]

_Not half bad? That’s the last time you get any. They are DELICIOUS. I’m used to getting five-star reviews._

Danny hoped Erica and Boyd couldn’t see him grinning like a maniac at the screen. He adjusted the height of his monitors so he could hide behind them more easily.

[d.mahealani to m.stilinski, 10:49]

_Are you free tonight? Drinks after work?_

[m.stilinski to d.mahealani, 10:50]

_Thought you’d never ask._

Danny had arranged to meet up with Stiles at seven-thirty in a bar downtown. As it happened, he saw him at five-fifteen on his way home from work, broken down on the side of the road.

When Danny pulled over, Stiles was swearing colourfully at an old jeep that looked like it should have been put out to pasture years, if not decades, ago. It made Danny’s old Honda look like Peter Hale’s Mercedes in comparison.

Danny crossed his arms, leaned back against the hood of his car. ‘You okay there?’

‘Fine,’ Stiles insisted. ‘It’s nothing. Happens all the time. I mean. Not _all_ the time. It’s not broken, or anything.’

Danny glanced at the jeep, which was smoking gently. 

‘Don’t suppose you’re secretly a mechanic?’ Stiles asked hopefully.

‘Sorry, dude. This is one thing I definitely can’t fix for you.’

Privately, he wondered if _anyone_ would be able to fix this creaking mess of a car, though it seemed bad manners to say so. He stood there for another moment while Stiles waved around a spanner and applied tape to the vehicle’s insides as though his life depended on it. 

‘Stiles?’ he said eventually.

‘Nearly got it,’ Stiles grunted. ‘Enough duct tape solves anything, trust me.’

Danny had to admire his optimism, and his persistence. 

And, well, the view of his ass in those smart work pants as he bent over the hood of the jeep. 

‘For the record, when I suggested drinks, this wasn’t really what I had in mind,’ he said, handing Stiles a lukewarm soda from his backpack as they sat in Danny’s Honda waiting for the tow truck. 

Stiles chugged it down, smacked his lips and actually _winked_ at Danny, admirably chipper for someone with a fucked-up jeep and engine grease on his cheeks and a small sliver of duct tape clinging to his hair. 

‘You sure know how to show a guy a good time.’

‘So I’ve been told.’

‘Is that so? You know your way around hardware as well as software, eh?’ Stiles waggled his eyebrows, elbowing Danny in the ribs. 

Danny was not about to dignify that tired old joke with a laugh. ‘Is this your idea of flirting? Or are you going to keep fabricating problems with valuable IT equipment?’

‘Hey, every one of those problems was genuine. I just have _seriously_ bad luck.’

‘You just stopped short of destroying company property.’

‘I was just given a crappy computer. Permanently defective. Who do I shout at about that? Boyd? If it’s Erica, I’ll pass. She’s far too scary to shout at.’

He grinned, easy and charming. Danny took a swig of the soda, unsure why he was so hesitant all of a sudden. Stiles sitting there in the passenger seat made it _weird_ , somehow. He felt like a teenager picking up a date in his mom’s car and desperately hoping they’d hump in the backseat after the movie.

He tried, ‘You know, if you ever do have a genuine IT emergency, you’re screwed. Erica and Boyd will ignore you now. Isaac ignores everyone.’

‘And you’re far too busy and important to help me.’

‘Exactly. Glad you’ve finally caught on.’

‘Asshole,’ Stiles said, and he leaned forward and placed a sweet little kiss on Danny’s lips. He was sticky with soda and reeked of engine grease, which was absurd and exasperating and somehow very _Stiles_. 

It caught Danny slightly off guard. Stiles beamed at him like he'd hung the moon.

Then he glanced down into Danny’s backpack and focused on what was apparently the matter at hand. ‘Got any more soda? Wait, are those Doritos? Are you hiding snacks from me? Not one for sharing food, IT? Who knows how long we’ll be stranded here! We’ll have to start eating our own shoes. I’m practically wasting away already –’

‘Stiles,’ Danny interrupted, taking hold of the front of his shirt, cupping a hand round the back of his neck and pulling him closer again, Stiles's big brown eyes sparkling with mischief, ‘shut _up_.’

**Author's Note:**

> As is probably embarrassingly obvious, I do not work in IT and know nothing at all about computers, so I apologise for everything I should apologise for... 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
